Tomorrow, a battered nation will heave itself up and drag itself to the polling stations.
There, Robert Mugabe will be re-elected as the leader of Zimbabwe as the world watches on, fists clenched.
Beaten, raped and starved into submission, Morgan Tsvangirai’s supporters will have no choice in the matter – Mugabe made the consequences of voting for his opponent harrowingly clear: Don’t even dare vote against me…on pain of death.
Mugabe lost the initial election. But in throwing his toys from the basket (and murdering a few hundred people along the way), he has managed to haul his ailing party back from the sidelines and into power again. This re-election, with its one candidate, is, at its very best, a joke. But at its very worst (and this is the aspect that is all too real), it is utterly tragic.
As I sit in my comfortable bed, surrounded by my comfortable things, I am comforted by the fact that even though Ireland is headed for recession, I will never have to pay $100million for a bunch of bananas. For the citizens of Zimbabwe and, in particular, those who are desperate for change, such luxuries are unfathomable.
Over the past few weeks I have felt a tiny glimmer of hope that Zimbabwe’s moment had come; that through the beatings, threats and intimidation spearheaded by Mugabe, the people would respond through their votes with a defiant roar of ‘No more!’
Their chance will never come now. Since Tsvangirai abandoned his bid to lead this crippled country out of its worsening economic and human rights crisis, his supporters will have no choice but to languish under the fate that is now before them.
Admittedly, he was in an unenviable position. Fully aware of the threat to his own life as well as the lives of people faithful to his cause, in many ways his retreat from the race is nothing short of honourable. But without an opponent he has cleared the way for Mugabe to breeze through tomorrow’s proceedings.
And so I turn my attention to the crux of last week’s developments: Was Tsvangirai right to pull out?
I’ll leave you with the Yes and No arguments.
And some rather poignant messages from Zimbabwe’s bloggers themselves, whose desperate pleas leave me feeling useless. Which is probably the way many people interested in this crisis feel today.
